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Sunday, March 3, 2013

"President Obama’s military incursion into Niger, ostensibly to establish a drone base to counter "Al Qaeda" and other Islamist guerrilla activity in neighboring Mali, has little to do with counter-insurgency and everything to do with establishing U.S. control over Niger’s uranium and other natural resources output and suppressing its native Tuareg population from seeking autonomy with their kin in northern Mali and Algeria"...

President Obama’s
military incursion into Niger, ostensibly to establish a drone base to
counter «Al Qaeda» and other Islamist guerrilla activity in neighboring
Mali, has little to do with counter-insurgency and everything to do with
establishing U.S. control over Niger’s uranium and other natural
resources output and suppressing its native Tuareg population from
seeking autonomy with their kin in northern Mali and Algeria.

The new drone base is initially located in the capital of Niamey and
will later be moved to a forward operating location expected to be
located in Agadez in the heart of Tuareg Niger… The base is being
established to counter various Islamist groups – including Ansar Dine,
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Nigeria-based Boko Haram, and a
new group, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) - that
briefly seized control of northern Mali from Tuaregs, led by the
National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, who took advantage of a
coup d’etat in Mali to establish an independent Tuareg state called
Azawad.

The U.S. has long been opposed to any attempt by the suppressed Tuareg
people to establish their own independent state in the Sahara. American
opposition to the Tuaregs dovetails with historical French opposition to
Tuareg nationalism.

However, U.S. State Department and CIA personnel have been discussing a
U.S. presence in Niger since February 25, 2010, when a U.S. delegation
met with the Chairman of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of
Democracy (CSRD), General Souleyman Salou, just one week after the
military junta overthrew democratically-elected President Mamadou Tandja
in a coup and suspended the Nigerien constitution. According to a
leaked State Department cable from the U.S. embassy in Niamey:

Eric Whitaker, the U.S. Charge d’affaires met with Salou and Colonel
Moussa Gros, the Senior Military Advisor to the CSRD, in a session that
drew praise from Salou, who highlighted «the friendship between the two
countries». Salou also told the U.S. emissaries «the CSRD would continue
bilateral information liaison via the Directorate General for
Documentation and External Security (DGDSE) [The Nigerien intelligence
agency].» He stressed that the CSRD sought cooperation with Washington
in the areas of security assistance, the fight against al-Qaida, and
support for the regime. Although the United States has a policy of not
recognizing governments that achieve power through military coups and
force of arms, the Obama administration was as quick to embrace the
Nigerien junta as it had in supporting similar CIA-installed juntas in
Honduras and Paraguay.

Salou smiled as he stated that he understood the United States did not
support military coups and armed seizures of power. Obviously, Salou was
in on the Obama administration’s dirty little secret. While publicly
opposing coups, Washington had already supported one in Honduras and
would soon be supporting them in Paraguay, Libya, Syria, and other
countries. Salou’s resume spoke volumes of his U.S. training and
according to the leaked cable from Nimaey:

«BG [Brigadier General] Salou has been the Chief of Staff of the
Nigerien Air Force since at least 2003. He is a graduate of the US Air
Force's Command and Staff College and is assessed by the DATT [Defense
Attache] as extremely pro-U.S...Col. Gros, prior to assuming his role as
the advisor to the President of the CSRD, was the military advisor to
the Nigerien Prime Minister. Also assessed to be pro-U.S., at least one
of his children was educated in the United States and he reports to have
served as the Defense Attache) to the U.S. for a short period in 1987».

Niger is a poor African backwater country only of importance to the
United States when it can be used as a pawn in wider international
geopolitical security matters. The George W. Bush administration used
Niger and what turned out to be bogus attempts by Saddam Hussein to
obtain Nigerien «yellow cake» uranium to justify its invasion and
occupation of Iraq. It was later discovered that forged Niger government
documents on a Niger-Iraq uranium connection were provided to the White
House by the chief of Italy's SISMI intelligence service, General
Nicolo Pollari, on the orders of then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi.

In addition to using uranium-rich Niger as a cause for intervention I
the country, the Pentagon and CIA have also eyed Niger’s other mineral
and its oil resources. Those who have stood in the way of plans by
Western companies to exploit Niger’s natural resources have often paid
with their lives. In 1995, Niger's Tuareg leader Mano Dayak was killed
in a suspicious plane crash in northern Niger. Dayak was engaged in
peace negotiations with the central Niger government and was on his way
to Niamey when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff. However, an
autonomous Tuareg government in northern Niger threatened to undermine
the plans of Exxon and other U.S. oil companies and mineral miners to
have a free hand in exploiting oil and mineral resources around Lake
Chad, along the Chadian-Nigerien border. Many Tuaregs believed Dayak’s
plane was sabotaged by the CIA. Ironically, the location of America’s
future drone base in Agadez, northern Niger, complete with CIA officers
and U.S. Special Operations personnel, will be at Mano Dayak
International Airport, named for the martyred Tuareg leader.

Washington’s increasing military presence in the Sahel region has been
at least two decades in the making. U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
personnel began recruiting agents-of-influence among the 400-man
contingent sent by Niger to fight alongside American troops battling
Saddam Hussein’s forces in Operation Desert Storm. Under the rubric of
the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP), the United
States, with the cooperation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), has
pumped hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to the
security and intelligence services, as well as the military forces of
West African nations. The TSCTP was formerly known as the Pan-Sahel
Initiative. Nigerien security forces have used U.S.-supplied lethal
military and non-lethal crowd control equipment, including night-vision
equipment, armored high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, global
positioning systems, and secure radios, to forcibly put down
pro-autonomy Tuareg and other pro-democracy protesters.

U.S. military training for Niger is provided annually during the
Pentagon's OPERATION FLINTLOCK military exercise. U.S.-trained Nigerien
forces are also used to protect the uranium mines operated by the French
state-owned Areva nuclear power production company in cooperation with
Japanese and Spanish companies.

In addition to U.S. military personnel in Niamey, there are also U.S.
bases in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Bamako, Mali; Nouakchott,
Mauritania; and Tamanrasset, Algeria. The U.S. presence in Burkina Faso
is known as Creek Sand. From these and other suspected bases, the United
States has let loose armed and unarmed drones across the Sahara. This
is how the peoples of West Africa have been introduced to America’s
first president of African descent. Such a military incursion into
Africa would have been unthinkable and undoable for such white American
presidents as Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, John F. Kennedy, or Dwight
Eisenhower. However, Obama, as a president with roots in Kenya, gives
weighty cover for the U.S. plans to establish a neo-colonialist regime
for Africa, one run out of Washington.

Niger was once a colonial backwater of the French empire. It is now
transitioning into a full-blown protectorate of the American empire.
However, Niger should not grow used to its new American masters. The
American empire is crumbling due to financial and moral decay. When Pax
Americana finally falls, it will leave much of the world, including
Niger, in shock.

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RP

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